Saturday, January 06, 2007

Was reading some articles at my favorite open-access science website, IOP new journal of physics when I came across this fascinating bit of thinking. These gentleman from malaysia have an idea for triggering lightning using ultra short laser pulses. And as if that weren't cool enough they also have a proposal for capturing and storing some of the electrical power present in the lightning stroke. I could picture many places where a scheme like this might provide a perpetual stream of cheap or nearly free electric power.